I had fun watching and shooting photos of some of the USA Pro Challenge in Garden of the Gods yesterday. I missed seeing one of the laps because of a phone call for work. It’s always amazing to see how fast the pros are when they’re going all out.

The USA Pro Challenge finishes here in Colorado Springs’ on this Friday, August 24, but cyclists will be celebrating the race with an entire week of events leading up to the big Stage 5 finish. There are nightly bike rides and parties all week and a full day of activities on Friday. This week includes numerous give-aways and contests; the more events you attend, the more prizes you could receive! Don’t miss a moment of the festivities.

Rally Week Rides

Join with cyclists from across Colorado Springs for free, nightly rides starting Monday, August 20 leading up to the Stage 5 Finish.

Ride Details:

All rides start at 6:00 PM at America the Beautiful Park and end at a different downtown destination each night.
Rides are for all ability levels, with different route options available.
Bike valet will be available
$3 New Belgium beers and food specials at the finish

This week is big for cycling in the US and especially as the USA Pro Cycling Challenge kicks off today at 1:15 PM MDT with the prologue. The prologue course passes a few blocks from where I grew up.

Since this is a time trial, most of the riders start 1 minute a part but the last few will be 2 minutes apart. If a rider does manager to catch the rider in front of him, he’s not allowed to draft and must move to the other side of the road and make a fairly quick pass. The start times of the racers is here.

The course is 5.18 miles and overall is slightly downhill so it should be very fast. There is a slight climb in the Garden of the Gods before the screaming descent down Ridge Road.

At the bottom of Ridge Road is a 90 degree left hand turn followed by the road continue to curve to the left. Take the turn too slow and riders will lose valuable time. Take it too fast and they’ll lose skin.

Although I’ve known about it, I had never ridden it before. I’ve ridden pretty much all night over a dozen times between the solo 24 hour mountain bike races, RAAM qualifier and RAAM itself but it hasn’t seemed worth ridding for a couple of hours the middle of the night.

The difference this year was my 8 year old was begging me to take her since some friends were ridding it. She’s never ridden 10 miles so I was a bit concerned about her making it 14 miles but she’s very determined so I figured she’d try hard.

We showed up about an hour before and it was one big party like I had heard. Some people had their bikes decorated and were wearing costumes. I saw several people I knew.

My daughter hadn’t felt well the night before and still wasn’t feeling the best that morning. We got part way into the ride and she decided she wanted to go home. We live just a few blocks off the course around mile 6 so we stopped by the house and then I continued on the ride.

It was a fun ride and it was clear, dry and not too cold. I heard there were about 1,300 riders and everyone was in party mode. I rode for little ways with Ken Hanes on his ElliptiGO. Maybe next year my daughter will want to ride it again.

Other trail users don’t always welcome mountain bikers on the trails. We are fortunate that very few trails in the Colorado Springs area are closed to mountain bikes unlike some other areas. Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates has had a huge part in keeping it that way. If I remember my history correctly, Medicine Wheel was started nearly 20 years ago when most of the trails in Garden of the Gods were closed to mountain biking.

A few weeks ago I got the following message from Medicine Wheel

Recently, an off-duty city park ranger was hiking in Garden of the Gods Park in a relatively undeveloped area near Rampart Range Road and came across several individuals hacking away at trying to build a “radical downhill” trail. You know, the kind you might see at a ski area, with gap jumps, straight down the fall line, big rocks, etc. These people had no authorization, had chopped down trees, moved boulders, and had generally made a real mess of things. As most of you know, mountain biking in most of Garden of the Gods is specifically banned, so you probably couldn’t pick a worse place to build a renegade trail.

To make matters worse, when this ranger inquired as to what the “trail builders” were doing, they threatened to physically harm her. So, the police were called, the “trail builders” disappeared, and now the entire mountain biking community is left to clean up the mess.

Obviously this is not good for mountain biking. Medicine Wheel is having a work day this Saturday, May 7th to fix up the damage done by these mountain bikers. They are meeting at 8 AM in the upper parking lot at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post. The park is closed all day because of a running race and you can only enter via the Becker’s Lane entrance.

No experience is needed. Tools will be provided but bring sunscreen, snacks, water, long pants, gloves and sturdy shoes. Most of the work is on steep slopes with lots of cactus, yucca, scrub, loose rocks, etc. There is very little shade and it is expected to be warm, so please be prepared for the conditions. RSVP to jim@medwheel.org

I’ve received a couple e-mails about a new reflective white stripe in the Garden of the Gods. I haven’t ridden there since it’s been added so I don’t know exactly what it looks like but several people have crashed. One of the top local mountain bike racers crashed but wasn’t seriously hurt. An USA Cycling employee went down and broke his ankle and had to have surgery. Just be careful if you do ride in the Garden of the Gods. I generally stay away this time of year because the tourists make it dangerous.